Sen. David Boren: “(Club) President (Alan) Simpson failed miserably … to resolve the most pressing issue facing our club. He failed to assuage the powerful forces demanding that we admit women. But tonight I’m here to announce a Bush-type compromise. We will admit women … posthumously.”

Pete Domenici: “My fellow Alfalfans, I have a secret weapon in our upcoming campaign. I’m blessed with the talent of … whipping the electorate to a frenzy. Just like the singer Tom Jones, women often throw their panties at me when I speak. It happened again just yesterday. I just don’t know what got into Senator (Barbara) Mikulski.”

Also, I reported earlier that the club began admitting women in 1994. They began admitting black men in 1979. Maybe this is all a sign of how far we’ve come, I don’t know, but it disturbs me that there seems to be an attempt to hide things about the club. In news accounts from prior years, the fact about Lee is offered as a throwaway. Why omit it this year?

Update 2: 3:30pm – Spoke to the White house press office again, they currently have no comment, other than to confirm that the President will be attending the dinner. Also, it turns out that, until 1994, the Alfalfa Club Dinner was, like hair dye for graying beards, Just for Men. That year, Hillary Clinton attended with President Bill Clinton, and the club inducted 3 female members, including Liddy Dole and Sandra Day O’Connor. I also found an old invitaion to the 1961 dinner.

Update: 12:16 pm – I got about 3/4 done with this story before I found out about the Robert E. Lee thing. It bugged me that nobody seemed to know about it. at first, I thought it was some joker screwing with Wikipedia, but I found the reference in that old WaPo article, too. So, I called the White House press office. The spokesman I talked to said it was the first he’d heard of it. I asked if the President was aware that the Alfalfa Dinner was in honor of Robert E. Lee’s birthday, and if he had a comment about it. I am awaiting their response.

You all remember Sarah Palin, the Alaska Governor who ran for Vice President, don’t you? Well, Palin may have gone back to Alaska, but her $180,000.00 wardrobe is still kicking around the lower 48, causing headaches for the RNC. From the conservative (wishfully named) website New Majority:

Despite the Republican National Committee’s promise to donate Sarah Palin’s $180,000 campaign wardrobe to charity, word has it the Alaska governor’s clothes remain stuffed in trash bags at RNC headquarters, NewMajority has learned.

While Palin followed through on her promise to return her controversial wardrobe after the election, it seems the RNC has not followed through on its promise to give most of the clothes away.

It amuses me that, as the article goes on to say, big RNC donors have their own panties in a bunch over Palin’s unsold garments. With their party in worse disarray than the 12 tribes of Kobol, and with the election of a new chair on the horizon, these yahoos think they ought to be worried about having a yard sale for Palin’s duds.

It will get done eventually, and if Palin’s status as a sex symbol with Republican men holds up, they ought to turn a nice profit.

Still, on the off chance that it isn’t that they’re too busy, here are my…

Top 5 Reasons Sarah Palin’s Wardrobe Hasn’t Been Sold

5- Alterations – The clothes can’t be sold until, per an RNC agreement, a bitchin’ “RedState Army” patch is sewn onto every item.

4 – Moose Urine – An avid hunter, Palin’s clothes now have to be sorted to determine which were doused for the hunt, and which were not. The urine threads will cost extra.

3 – RNC Can’t Find Anyone Who Can Figure Out “PayPal” – They should just ask Ted Stevens, he knows a lot about the internet.

2 – Saving For “Palin Wardrobe Museum” – They just need to earmark $457 million to construct it. Oh, then they’ll need to build a bridge to it.

The qutoe that’s getting all the attention is Rush’s “grab the ankles” fantasy, but I wish people would highlight, and challenge, the notion that anyone in the media is saying we shouldn’t question Obama because he’s black.

Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin said her state intends to sue the U. S. government for listing beluga whales in Cook Inlet as an endangered species.

Palin, the Republican party’s vice-presidential nominee for last November’s election, said the federal government didn’t properly consider actions Alaska has taken to protect the whale before making its ruling.

What a bummer. I was all ready to crack jokes about Palin and caviar, but it’s beluga whales, not sturgeon. I could’ve even thrown a pun in there about how she thought it was about protecting doctors, or not wanting them to wear rubbers, or something.

So, do I care about beluga whales? They’re kinda unattractive, like pasty porpoises, and they don’t even produce delicious caviar. All the other whales hate them for being so small and pert.

Well, beluga whales are whales, for one. As a liberal, I am naturally predisposed to loving whales, those great symbols of our threatened environment, and objects of revenge fantasies by sea captains and Republicans. But they are also considered environmental canaries of a sort, giving scientists the heads up when an ecosystem is headed south.

They also make great snacks for polar bears, another cause celebre of ours. Reading about how the big lugs hunt the poor, helpless belugas kinda made me hate them, a little. They wait ’til they get surrounded and trapped by ice, then they swoop in and make sushi out of ’em. What do you do when cute meets psychotic and vicious? What do you do?

Anyway, Palin’s argument seems to be that we ought to wait ande see if the population rebounds without the protection. Persuasive, except that if thescientists wrong, all we get are piles of little white whales. If Palin’s wrong, we lose the whales, and the polar bears have to buy all-new skinny outfits.

President-Elect Barack Obama appeared on ABC’s This Week (not Meet the Press, as formerly noted) today, discussing a wide range of issues that I’ll get to later, but there was a quote right at the end that jumped out at me:

STEPHANOPOULOS: What kind of a dog are we getting and when are we getting it?

OBAMA: The — they seem to have narrowed it down to a labradoodle or a Portuguese water hound.

OK, I gotta cut in here. I know you’re The One, and all, but you can’t just make dogs up out of thin air. What the hell is a labradoodle? And a Portuguese water hound? Sure, and why not get a Lithuanian Air Pooch, while you’re at it?

STEPHANOPOULOS: A medium sized.

OBAMA: Medium sized dog, and so, we’re now going to start looking at shelters to see when one of those dogs might come up.

STEPHANOPOULOS: So, you’re closing in on it?

OBAMA: We’re closing in on it. This has been tougher than finding a commerce secretary.

It’s actually an apt metaphor. Bill Richardson was a lot like that dog who looks really cute at the shelter, makes all kinds of eye contact, but when you get him home, he spends most of his time chasing his tail or presenting your kids with the gift of juicy rodent remains.

There’s a big difference, though. You’ll get in a whole heap of trouble if you throw a dog under the bus.

With the news today that Barack Obama has offered the job of Surgeon General to CNN’s Dr. Sanjay Gupta, I thought it might be helpful if I pitched in with some quick bullet points to smooth over any opposition to the pick. Sure, there may be some naysayers, like Michael Moore, but it should be obvious to anyone that Gupta is the right man for this job.

Here are six good things about the pick, in case you’re not convinced:

#5 No matter how many people die, he can’t be President – The Surgeon General is not in the line of succession, I checked. This should allay any concerns about his lack of political experience. Here’s an interesting fact, though. Come Jan. 20, older-than-dirt’s-father Senator Robert Byrd will be 3rd in line, behind Nancy Pelosi and just ahead of Hillary Clinton.

#4 He’s younger than me – Wait, that’s not good, that sucks.

#3 Four to eight years of needling Biden by bringing him a Slurpee every day– Think of it as a kind of gaffe aversion therapy, although I don’t think Biden needs the brain freeze.

#2 Endless fodder for cheap, easy jokes about television personalities in government – kinda like this one:

#1 Softens public up for Leon Panetta’s replacement as CIA director-designate by Jack Bauer – Not Kiefer Sutherland. Jack Actual Bauer. Obama can do it.

Wow, yet another similarity between Ann Coulter and Pete Rose.
Drudge is reporting that NBC scrapped a Coulter appearance at the last minute, and that the network has banned her from its air for life:

The nation’s top selling conservative author has been banned from appearing on NBC, insiders tell the DRUDGE REPORT.

“We are just not going to have her on any more, it’s over,” a top network source explains.

But a second top suit strongly denies there is any “Coulter ban”.

I hate to pat myself on the back, but it looks like my headline from yesterday was dead-on. While Coulter’s de-fanged fashion critique was a sobering omen for the right-wing press, the fact that even that got her banned from NBC portends a rough 8 years.

I find it curious that NBC stuck with Coulter through “faggot” jokes and 9/11 widow-trashing, but has taken a stand now. I also wonder if NBC will stick with the ban even if Coulter thinks up a cheesy but popular game show premise.

I’ve also been told by a close friend that Coulter is a delight in person, corroborating Matt Lewis’ description. I’m also told that Hannibal Lecter threw a hell of a dinner party.

Drudge goes on to say that others at NBC, including Joe Scarborough, are opposing the ban. I say that it is hypocritical for NBC to exploit Coulter when the political winds blow her way, but to “find their outrage” now that Obama is in office.

UPDATE (8:39 am): Ann Coulter appears on CBS’s The Early Show. Video after the jump.